Unsubscribe Link

What is the Unsubscribe Link?
Best practices, as well as the Federal CAN-SPAM Act, require that there be present in all emails a simple and plainly visible method for allowing any email recipient to opt-out of receiving any further emails from the sender.  These “unsubscribe” or “opt-out” requests must be honored within ten (10) days of receiving the request from the recipient.  The opt-out mechanism must be active for at least 30 days after sending the email.  The sender cannot require that the recipient provide any personally identifying information beyond the email address or make the recipient send a reply email or go to more than one page on a website to initiate an opt-out request.  Once the request is processed, the sender cannot sell or transfer that email to anyone, unless it is to a firm assisting it in processing the original opt-out request.

How to Implement the Unsubscribe Link

What the law does not say is what, specifically, the Unsubscribe link should look like and where it should be placed.  Most email marketers place the Unsubscribe link at the very bottom of the email, almost as an afterthought.  Email marketers do not really want email recipients to unsubscribe.  After all, a lot of effort went into accumulating the email addresses on their list.  So why make it obvious that the recipient can stop those emails quickly and easily.  Many email marketing services automatically insert an Unsubscribe link in all emails, not relying on the email sender to insert the link within the content of their email.  After all, the email marketing service is also on the hook regarding the law and they do not want to take any chances that key elements of emails that they send out for customers are not present.

Be Proactive with the Unsubscribe Link

I take a different view of the Unsubscribe link.  The Unsubscribe link can be your friend.  It could save you a lot of headaches in the long run. How, you ask?  Well, if the easy availability and prominent placement of the Unsubscribe link can save you from a recipient sending a SPAM complaint about your email, then you have done a small part to save your sending reputation.

I performed an experiment on an email campaign that I split into two parts (1,600 emails each send with a nine (9) month old list):  1) Unsubscribe link on just the bottom of the email and 2) Unsubscribe link on the very top of the email.  The result: When the Unsubscribe link was placed prominently on the top of the email, before the banner I had on the top or any of the content, then I had zero (0) SPAM complaints.  There were bounces, but no SPAM complaints.  It seems that given an easy choice, recipients would rather just send an Unsubscribe request then get aggressive with a SPAM complaint.  In the long run, this will have a positive effect on maintain a clean list and a good sending reputation.

What have been your results from placing an Unsubscribe link in your email campaigns?

Stewart Friedman

Pay Per Visit Email